US admits scores of civilians killed in anti-IS air strikes

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS) group may have killed up to 119 civilians since 2014, a figure far lower than casualty estimates by monitoring groups.

The figures released by Centcom, the US military command in the Middle East, came from a months-long review of reports and databases, it said, and included a list of 24 air strikes in the past year in which it said up to 64 civilians had been killed and eight others injured.

In the worst single incident, it said 10 civilians had been killed in a strike on an IS weapons production facility near Mosul, Iraq, on 5 March 2016.

London-based NGO Airwars.org estimates coalition bombing has killed 1,787 civilians since the air campaign to destroy IS began in August 2014.

"We have teams who work full time to prevent unintended civilian casualties," Colonel John Thomas was quoted as saying in the Centcom statement.

"Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action but we do all we can to minimize those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."

"We do all we can to minimise those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time."

'Sometimes civilians bear the brunt of military action but we do all we can to minimise those occurrences even at the cost of sometimes missing the chance to strike valid targets in real time'

Colonel John Thomas, CentCom spokesperson

The Pentagon's investigation found that "in each of these strikes the right processes were followed; each complied with Law of Armed Conflict and significant precautions were taken, despite the unfortunate outcome," Thomas said.

The US, which carries out 80 percent of the coalition bombing, says it uses precision-guided munitions that limit civilian casualties.

But questions have long been raised about the accuracy and methods of assessment used by the US military to assess civilian casualties.

A year ago, Middle East Eye reported on the deaths of six children from one family killed in an apparent US air strike near the northern town of Atmeh in August 2015.

Muawiyya al-Amouri told MEE that six of his children, aged between 10 months and 10 years old, and three members of a refugee family sharing their house, died in the attack.

US Central Command opened an investigation into the incident but subsequently told MEE that the inquiry had concluded that reports of civilian casualties were "unfounded" and said the target of the strike had been an IS "staging area".

Al-Amouri told MEE at the time: "IS hasn’t been in this area for approximately two years. This is my house. My home. It was occupied by me, my children, some refugees. All civilians."

His surviving children,  Ali, aged five, and Nariman, aged two, also suffered serious injuries with life-changing consequences.

He said his son had required several operations for head injuries and had spent a month in hospital, while his daughter could no longer walk, was blind and could not speak.

"She used to walk and talk, she had no problems. Now her legs are as you can see. I don't know what is wrong with them. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t see, and I don’t know what to do for her," he said.

Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer at the human rights organisation Reprieve which has taken legal action on behalf of civilian victims of drone strikes, told MEE that the US needed to carry out "proper, public investigations into dozens of credible claims of civilian casualties".

"The reality is that the US quite simply has no idea who it is killing. This lack of transparency is the hallmark of a US counterterrorism approach that fires missiles based on faulty intelligence and no accountability," she said.

'The reality is that the US quite simply has no idea who it is killing'

Jennifer Gibson, Reprieve

Meanwhile, Russia is accused of using conventional bombs that are much more deadly to civilian populations.

Amnesty International estimates that there have been at least 300 civilian victims in Syria alone from coalition strikes.

The number of casualties has risen sharply since the start of the coalition's campaign in late 2015 to lay the groundwork to take back IS strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria.

On Tuesday, a US-led coalition air strike killed 20 civilians, including two children, overnight in a village near IS's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, a monitor said on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were also wounded in the strikes on Tuesday night on the village of al-Heisha, some 40 km north of Raqqa.

"The toll has risen to 20 civilians, including nine women and two children," Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman said.

The monitor had earlier given a toll of 16 dead.

Abdul Rahman said 32 people had also been injured in the strikes, adding that all the casualties were civilians.

Al-Heisha is controlled by IS and has been a target of a new assault by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as it pushes to capture Raqqa.

A spokeswoman for the Kurdish-Arab alliance dismissed the reports of civilian deaths.

"There is no such thing, and any such claims are IS news," Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP.

The SDF's media account said at least six IS militants had been killed by US-led coalition strikes in the village and accused the militant group of preventing civilians from leaving al-Heisha in a bid to use them as "human shields".

The US-led coalition had no immediate comment on the report.